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LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE 



The Deeper Life Series. 

Handsomely printed and daintily bound. 
Illustrated. 

Price, 23 cents each, postpaid. 



WELL-BUILT. 

Rev. Theodore L. Cuyler, D. D. 



ANSWERED! 



Rev. J. Wilbur Chapman, D. D., 
Rev. R. A. Torrey, D.D., Rev. C. 
H. Yatman, Rev. Edgar E. David- 
son, and Thomas E. Murphy. 



THE INDWELLING GOD. 

Rev. Charles A. Dickii 

LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 
Amos R. Wells. 

A FENCE OF TRUST. {Poems.) 
Mrs. Mary F. Butts. 



D.D. 



United Society of Christian Endeavor. 
Boston and Chicago. 



Little Sermons for One 



Amos 




By 



r. \yells 



Managing Editor of 
The Christian Endeavor World 




United Society of Christian Endeavor 
Boston and Chicago 



SSv^-s/d 



Copyright, i8g8 
By United Society of Christian Endeavor 



2nd GOHY t 
1898. 






- 




of Co' 



Colonial Press : 
Electrotyped and Printed by 
C. H. Simonds &> Co 
Boston, U.S.A. 



EIVED. 






XS^^ 



CONTENTS. 



A Revelation of Christ . 








PAGE 

7 


The Manufacture of Memories 






9 


The Strength of Waiting 






ii 


The Balance of Praise . 








13 


Mildewed Temples . 








IS 


A Good Conscience . 








18 


Your Daily Help 








19 


Making a Body . 








21 


Be Bold 








23 


Led and Tempted 








25 


Your Spirit in Your Work 








27 


Self and Service 








29 


Your King .... 








31 


To a Lonely Worker 








32 


What Kind of Obedience? 








34 


Rejoicing in Failure 








36 


Getting Power in Prayer 








33 


Be Ambitious 








40 


The Forward Look . 








42 


How Simple Is Life!. 








43 


The Great Surrender 








45 



LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 




A REVELATION OF CHRIST. 

[F you should look up from this book and 
see before you, standing by that table, or 
sitting in that chair, a plain man in plain 
clothes, his features also plain, per- 
chance, except that from his eyes shone a light 
that never was on sea or land, and if this man 
should tell you he was Jesus, the Christ of God ; 
if this plain man should at once prove by mar- 
vellous deeds and no less marvellous words that 
the thing was true ; if this experience should befall 
you this minute, would you have a more real sense 
of Christ's presence than you have now ? 

And if this man should go out with you to your 
work, consult with you about your business, tug 
with you at something hard to lift, verify a column 
of figures for you, passing through your day with 
you as a visible, audible helper, would you take 
home with you at night a more vivid sense than 
usual of your great Elder Brother ? 
7 



5 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

Then Christ is not yet as real to you as he 
should be; then you need a revelation of him. 

This revelation should be so distinct, so impres- 
sive, so indubitable, as forevermore to dissipate 
your loneliness, forevermore to resolve your doubts, 
once for all to ally you to the spiritual life, parting 
you from the love of the flesh. 

And this revelation you may have through the 
Holy Spirit, whom the Father delights to send to 
those that ask him, and who, when he comes, 
delights to take of the things of Christ, yea, to 
take Christ himself, and show him to us. 

We cannot foretell what way may seem best to 
him. To some he reveals Christ by clear visions, 
to some through books, or through the lives of 
Christ's saints. To some the revelation is sudden ; 
to others it is the blessed unfolding of years. But 
all these things, whatever they are, worketh that 
one and the selfsame Spirit. 

What do we need more than this revelation, that 
shall remove Christ from our mythology and put 
him into our lives ; bring him from heaven, where 
our faithless, sense-bound minds have placed him, 
down to our daily tasks and most intimate living ? 
Blessed Spirit, who in thy supreme self-abnegation 
and self-forgetfulness dost hide thyself, that thou 
mayst the better show us the Man of Galilee, dis- 
close him to us, we pray thee with longing hearts. 




THE MANUFACTURE OF MEMORIES. 9 

Startle us with a presentation of him that shall 
burn his face upon our memory, even with the 
flame of Pentecost. And may the sight so ransom 
us from the pettiness of our lives, so lift us into the 
large things, the enduring things, that ever after- 
wards we shall walk with God. Amen. 



THE MANUFACTURE OF MEMORIES. 

HAT possession so strange as your mem- 
ories ? You cannot help owning them. 
Whatever you make, you are making 
them. When you do nothing you are 
manufacturing them as vigorously as when you are 
at work. You cannot buy what memories you have 
not, and you cannot sell what you have. Yes, and 
not all your wealth will rid you of those you dislike. 
Other possessions you can lock up and leave, but 
this possession follows you around. Indeed, your 
memories may rather be said to possess you than 
be possessed by you. You are compelled to spend 
a large part of your time in their company. When- 
ever you awake in the night, they are there. At 
any idle moment they obtrude themselves. They 
always have time to talk with you, and when you 
are most anxious to get rid of them they are the 
most persistent in their approaches. 

Forced to such close companionship with them, 



IO LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

if they are vile, your life must be a hog-pen, though 
it seem to the eye a cathedral. If they are sad, if 
they are harsh, your life is a grievous one. If they 
are noble, cheery memories, although you are poor, 
despised, neglected, you cannot help living like a 
king. 

And inevitable though your companionship with 
them must be, yet you can make them what you 
please. Difficult as it is to get rid of them when 
made, it is the easiest thing in the world to make 
them. Consider what you remember with the great- 
est satisfaction. Is it not the little, thoughtful word 
you dropped with so slight effort, yet it set a sad 
heart to singing, and you yourself have been singing 
over it ever since ? Is it not some hour passed un- 
selfishly, some letter written to a troubled friend, 
some aid given to poverty or despair, aid which 
cost you nothing but is of priceless value to you 
even still ? Your grand achievements, the speeches 
you have made, the books you have written, the 
fortune you have built up, the houses you have 
erected, the offices you have held, the praise you 
have won, not those have brought you the sweetest 
memories, but these deeds that were so easily done 
when once the heart was in the way of them. 

Ah, what a garden grows from a little seed ! Ah, 
what an interest returns from the slightest loan to 
the Lord ! And how sad it is and unutterably foolish 




THE STRENGTH OF WAITING. I I 

that, while the most glorious memories are to be 
manufactured with so small an outfit, at so little 
cost of time or trouble, we should spend our lives 
rearing great mills that turn out only trifling memo- 
ries, or memories that poison and slay ! 

THE STRENGTH OF WAITING. 

i OU have caught the impatient step of the 
times. To-morrow is too late for you ; it 
must be to-day. Preparation is scouted ; 
deeds must spring, like Minerva, full 
formed from the head. The intricate intertwinings 
of providence are quite forgotten. Results must 
leap to your thought, though they tear a dozen 
threads on the way. In the enthusiasm of achieve- 
ment you have lost the enthusiasm of a steady 
purpose ; your journeys have become a roar and a 
goal. 

But learn to rest in God, and wait patiently for 
him ! No moment of his seasons lacks beauty, and 
the dormant winter is as lovely as the bourgeoning 
spring. You cannot get in touch with God by 
parts ; you must live through his whole year. You 
must know his waiting, or you will never know his 
activities. You must find out how to rest in him, or 
you can never find out how to work for him. He 
will not give his Spirit by measure, least of all by 



12 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

the measure you choose, and in the portions you 
choose. 

You have thought to win God easily by working, 
whereas he is to be won with difficulty by waiting 
also. It needs a stronger man to wait than to work. 
It needs more patience to wait than to work ; it 
needs more courage, more faith, more zeal, more 
perseverance, more joy in service, more confidence 
in one's self and in God. You have stopped with the 
lowest step when you content yourself with working 
and will not go on to waiting. 

But you do not see the need of waiting ? Ah, 
how poorly then you must have worked ! For no 
one works long to any high purpose without coming 
to a point where he cannot work. It may be some 
human obstacle which years alone can overthrow. 
It may be some divine providence, inscrutable, in- 
evitable. You have labored only on the surface, 
indeed, if you have not come against those adaman- 
tine walls. 

And they are not to be mourned over, but to 
rejoice over, as everything in God's ordering is 
to be rejoiced over. For the strength that is in 
them, their age-long, stern endurance, is to be trans- 
ferred to you. They make up the earth giant, with 
which whoso struggles, the gigantic powers of the 
earth come to him. The man who could work all 
day would faint if he had to stand still all day. 




THE BALANCE OF PRAISE. 1 3 

Power is needed for waiting, and grows from wait- 
ing. Those whom God withholds from action are 
not withheld from progress. They go from strength 
to strength, every one that stands before God in 
Zion. 

THE BALANCE OF PRAISE. 

,011 are of those, friend, that prefer the 
sin of censoriousness to the fault of flat- 
tery. You pride yourself on your frank- 
ness, and quite forget that frank praise 
is more useful than frank reproof. Habit, through 
long years, has made condemnation easy for you, 
and commendation difficult. Indeed, you have 
come to think praise a weakness, and dispraise a 
token of power. So it is that, for every opportunity 
of approval, you find scores of occasions for cen- 
sure. And in this way, while you gain a mocking 
enjoyment of a false shrewdness, you are sadly 
darkening the world for yourself, making it appear 
an evil world, whereas it is a very good one. 

We '11 readily grant that you have chosen the easi- 
est manner of living. No thoughtfulness is required 
to discover meannesses and sins. No skill is needed 
to point out faults. It is of their nature that they 
point themselves out, and hideously compel notice. 
But excellencies, though as many and as real, are 
more retiring. They must be inquired of with love, 



14 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

and sought out with sympathy. Nor is it easy to 
praise with discrimination, so that it will not seem 
flattery, with heartiness, so that it will not seem 
envy, and with sweetness, so that it will not beget 
pride. Mightily to criticize requires no training, 
but wisely to commend needs long apprenticeship, 
a clear head, and a kindly heart. Any clodhopper 
can find fault, but only a wise man can praise. 

And praise, not faultfinding, is what the world 
needs. For every hundred faultfinders there is but 
one to praise ; yet for every occasion when fault- 
finding would be wise, there are a hundred where 
appreciation is needed. Machines call seldom for 
the file, but often for the oil. If a man has only an 
ounce of good to a ton of evil, better a lift on the 
ounce than a blow on the ton. Where Blame goes 
a mile, Praise goes ten miles, and where Blame 
tears down a cobweb, Praise sweeps a room. 

It is true that if from this instant every tongue 
that wags in the world should forget altogether how 
to find fault and know only how to commend, the 
wheels of progress would roll just as swiftly. In- 
deed, they would almost run away with themselves 
in that happy time. But since this miracle is not 
to be expected, human nature being what it has 
come to be, a course is possible which would at 
any rate reform you. It is simply this : Enter into 
solemn league and covenant with yourself and your 



MILDEWED TEMPLES. I 5 

God, that, before you find fault with a person once, 
you will first praise him ten times. Surely this 
would be only an approach to the wise proportion, 
but it would better itself ; for by the time you had 
earned, through your ten commendations, the right 
to reprove him once, doubtless he would alike have 
withdrawn from the provocation, and you from the 
spirit of faultfinding. 



MILDEWED TEMPLES. 

1 OUR body is a temple of the Holy Ghost. 
It is a church in which he is worshipped. 
Indeed, your body, and such as yours, 
are the only churches in which God is 
worshipped, in spite of those piles of brick and stone. 
And yet, the outside churches that make meeting- 
houses for those real churches, our bodies, will give 
us a hint or two as to what our bodies should be, 
and what they should avoid. 

Have you ever seen churches turned into theatres, 
with much of the ecclesiastical architecture retained, 
while within are heard lewd songs in place of pure 
anthems, and the buffoonery of painted men and 
women in place of the truth of God ? Has such a 
fate befallen your temple, brother ? Has it become 
a theatre of vulgarity, and beastliness, and frivolous 
unreality ? 




1 6 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

Then you have seen, too, have you not, those 
churches turned to stores, greedy bargaining, lying, 
and cheating in possession of the sacred place, as 
before Christ drove the money-changers from the 
temple ? There, where self-sacrifice should be the 
regnant thought, the ruler has become selfishness, 
the ledger has driven out the Bible, and the gener- 
ous collection-box has yielded to the safe. Has 
that church, your body, met with such a trans- 
formation ? 

One church that you may see has become a law 
school, and the wisdom of this world, with its sinu- 
ous windings, as involved as the world's multiform 
sin, has displaced the simple learning of God's law, 
the ten commandments and the two. So it may 
be that in your body, your church, the books of 
men have thrust aside the Book of God, and the 
lore that passes away with this world has crowded 
out the wisdom that reaches up to the highest court 
and the last judgment. 

And even when the church remains a church, 
sometimes the windows become dark with dirt, the 
walls mildewed, cracked, and crumbling, the bells 
discordant, the cushions moth-eaten, the books rag- 
ged, the roof leaking, the organ out of tune, the 
lamps smoky, the carpet faded and torn. So may 
the bells that sound from the belfry of your mouth, 
so may the wondrous organ of your voice, with all 



MILDEWED TEMPLES. I J 

its countless stops, become tuneless and harsh. So 
may those clear windows, your eyes, become dark- 
ened by preventable sickness, and the fair fresco of 
your skin grow foul and discolored by evil indul- 
gences. So may the roof of your brain become 
leaky, that you cannot keep out the suggestions of 
vice, and all its beautiful furnishings eaten and torn 
by the rats and moths of licentious fancies. Lazi- 
ness may spread its cobwebs in the corners, the 
rust of ignorance render its furnaces unsafe. Is 
your body becoming such a temple, friend ? 

Strong, rather, and pure, meet for the Lord and 
his angels ! Quiet, that you may hear what he 
would say to you ; crystal clear for the passage of 
his sunshine ; clean for the treading of his feet ! 
Within it shall be no disorder, for he is there, the 
Orderer of the universe. No harshness shall sound 
along those aisles, that he may live there who has 
fashioned harmony. No opening shall gap in its 
walls, no rent in its furnishings, since he, the per- 
fect One, is to dwell therein. Far into the blue sky 
its towers shall rise, pure out of purity and into 
purity, and the birds shall sing among them, and 
the white clouds shall smile upon them, and the 
angels, as they float from heaven to earth, will 
make of them their chosen stairways. And so 
shall your body become in living truth a temple of 
the living God. 




1 8 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 

>HE costliest thing in the world is a good 
conscience. To buy it you may be 
obliged to sell everything you have. In 
seeking it you may need every hour of 
your days. You do not possess a talent it may not 
require of you, or a pleasure it may not ask you 
to give up. What is dearest to you may be the 
last farthing — nay, the very first farthing — needed 
for the purchase. Truly a good conscience is the 
most expensive of luxuries. 

And yet there is nothing in all this world so 
cheap as a good conscience. No one is too poor to 
buy one. The price of one is never more than a 
man has. And after it is bought, though a man has 
given for it the wealth of a Rothschild, in comparison 
with the joy of it he has scarcely spent a penny. 
Though he has lavished a lifetime to gain it, he 
knows that he has but begun to live. Without it, 
all possessions are profitless and disappointing ; 
with it, the joy of the greatest delight is doubled. 
Without it, a palace is a hovel ; with it, a hovel is a 
palace. 

Your reason assents to this, and your experience 
proves it. Why, then, do you permit yourself to 
live in forgetfulness of it ? With a heedless 
word you wreck a day's chance of this vast good. 



YOUR DAILY HELP. 1 9 

With the deed of an hour you drive it away for 
many a month. If your gaining of a million dollars 
depended on your thoughtfulness, your unselfish- 
ness, your fidelity, your holiness, would these for 
a moment be lacking ? How then can you pretend 
to believe a good conscience better than a million 
dollars ? Until you have spent upon your desire to 
stand well with your God one tithe of the time and 
pains you spend in seeking your employer's good 
graces, how dare you think yourself in earnest in 
seeking the kingdom of heaven ? 

If what is here said is true, then, until you have 
accepted it with the loyal allegiance of your entire 
life, it is for you the greatest truth in the world. 

YOUR DAILY HELP. 

GENERAL is of value, not only in a 
battle, but on the march, and in prepar- 
ing for the battle ; yet it is chiefly when 
the enemy press upon you that you be- 
think yourself of God. You need special strength 
to climb a hill, but only a little more strength than 
you need to walk along the valley road. If you do 
not get power for the daily walk, the common level, 
you cannot expect power for the occasional up grade. 
It is not the man who closes his eyes on the world 
that sees the heavens open. The angels come to 




20 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

the shepherds as they are tending their flocks. The 
reason why you do not find God in the great emer- 
gencies of life is because you have not been finding 
him all the way. 

And this daily communion is where the joy comes 
in, as well as the help. Soldiers do not become ac- 
quainted in the battle, but in the camp. Travellers 
talk on the level, and not while climbing mountains. 
It is not the flash of some miraculous lightning that 
will show you God, but the sun of every day. It is 
the daily food, and the quiet, thoughtful eating of it, 
that alone make it possible for God to add the 
strengthening portion for special trials. 

And it is from this daily walk with God that ease 
of living comes. To be sure, we are helped by great 
deliverances, but, in the gross, not nearly so much as 
by the little, hourly sustainings. God knows well 
that the central test of life is set upon our common 
tasks, our petty worries, and therefore it is at the 
call of these he has placed his largest succors. 
Were you required to choose between God's help in 
the small affairs of life and his aid in the great ones, 
your life would be easiest if you won God for its 
trivialities. 

But, praise the Lord ! there is no such choice. 
When we have him for the little things, we have 
him for the great ones. If he walks along the level 
with us, we can count upon his help when we climb. 




MAKING A BODY. 21 

If he is with us in camp, he will be with us in the 
wildest battle. Do not save him for the emergencies, 
or you will lose him altogether. Pray with all your 
heart, " O Lord, give me day by day thy daily self ! " 

MAKING A BODY. 

HE constant thumping of the car wheels 
over a steel rail will tire its particles and 
rearrange them, and change the rail's 
entire structure, and break it down at 
length, although its surface seem the same. If you 
play on a piano that is out of tune, the inharmo- 
nious strings will untune the others, until the whole 
piano is harsh and the very framework discordant. 
Yes, and if a skilful violinist has long usage of a 
violin, playing upon its well-adjusted strings, al- 
though at first the instrument may be inferior, it 
will gain voice and resonance under the loving 
touch, until at length it will sing like a child, and 
sob like a human soul. 

Even so, literally and promptly, as you play over 
the fibres of your beautiful body, will you transform 
its every element, making it at your pleasure a vio- 
lin or a piece of ash-heap rubbish. Not a deed of 
yours but leaves an impression upon it somewhere ; 
not a word but still vibrates among its cords ; not 
even a thought, however secret and scarce con- 



22 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

fessed to yourself, but is written, black or golden, 
yet indelible, upon some tablet in that marvellous 
temple. So that, if our microscopes had eyes only 
a little keener, our chemistry an analysis only a 
little sharper, men could read upon your body alone 
a history of your inmost life in its most hidden 
sentences, from the cradle to the tomb. 

That worry which you have allowed to press 
upon you, hammering with dull and maddening 
iteration upon your shrinking brain, may have so 
changed its substance by this time that you must 
keep on worrying. That licentious thought may 
have poisoned the root of your life, may have 
wrought itself so into the current of your blood 
that henceforth it can never run smoothly and pure. 
Or, just as a piano-player by long and arduous 
practice has made the music automatic for her 
fingers, so you may have incorporated helpfulness 
into your hands, and swift unselfishness into your 
feet, and kindliness into your eyes, and sympathy 
into your ears, and nobility into the gray and white 
channels of your brain. 

There is a carnal body and there is a spiritual 
body. As we are now clothed with this mortal, we 
are to be clothed with that spiritual. And the 
same daily living that fashions so mysteriously our 
mortal bodies, is, step by step, fashioning also those 
bodies of our eternal habitation. The impurity that 



BE BOLD. 23 

festers in your pulsing veins of earth is making bad 
blood for your spiritual body. Every victory over 
self, registered on earth in clearer brain and more 
jubilant muscles, is registered in heaven on the 
loom that is weaving your spiritual brain and mus- 
cles. For life is all one, whether here or there, seen 
or unseen, as the universe is one, and God is one. 
O then, pray this prayer, and pray it often and 
earnestly : " Lord, thou my Creator, help me to 
create myself in thine image ! " 

BE BOLD. 

OW sturdy was our Lord ! He does not 
W appear to have minced matters. His 
1 |\ meekness had backbone withal. What 
he had to say, he said, and what he had 
to do, he did, with no apologies or by-your-leaves. 
And this not merely by virtue of his divinity, but 
he taught his fishermen disciples with absolute 
dignity of confidence to do the same. 

" Get thee hence, Satan," were his uncompro- 
mising words, to Diabolus and Peter alike. He 
preached repentance as fearlessly as the rough Bap- 
tist himself. He made the tramps, the drunkards, 
the convicts, the outcasts of the day, ■ — for as these 
to us, so were the Publicans to the Jews, — he made 
them his close companions. 




24 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

When others put on black, he put on white, — 
feasting, that is to say, while they fasted. " If they 
will not receive you," said he to his disciples, " shake 
off the dust of your feet against them." And 
" Woe ! Woe ! Woe ! " he cried, to the cities that 
rejected his teaching. 

When his manner of keeping the Sabbath was 
objected to, he replied that it was his Sabbath ; and 
when they waited to see what he would do on the 
holy day with that withered hand, he promptly 
healed it. When even his disciples expected of 
him a splendid Messianic proclamation, he said, 
" Blessed are they that mourn, are meek, perse- 
cuted." 

Your Master was never afraid to shock people or 
startle them. That was one way in which he was 
all things to all men, — dynamite to the sluggish 
as well as peace to the storm-tossed. He could 
answer questions, but first he had to rouse men to 
ask them. He was a far keener dialectician than 
Socrates, because he was more fiery. Socrates 
wove a net for his antagonist, and trapped him. 
Christ melted, with a lightning flash, all the 
weapons of his foes. 

Do not think too much of our Lord as the meek 
and lowly one. He was that, but he was also the 
sturdiest of fighters. When did he ever yield a 
point ? When did he ever compromise ? When 



LED AND TEMPTED. 2$ 

did he ever fail to assert himself — yes, even 
when he girt himself with the towel, and wiped 
his disciples' feet ! 

And Christ was thus bold in order that you 
might be as bold. He promised that you should 
do greater things than he ; therefore be as intrepid. 
And do not dare assume his humility without 
adding also his holy boldness. 

LED AND TEMPTED. 

|EAD us not into temptation," you pray; 
and do you feel, as you pray, that it is 
God who is responsible for your temp- 
tations when they come ? Nay, brother, 
but it is you who daily and hourly transform God's 
beautiful leadings into temptations. And no small 
part of your sin is this, that you yourself make not 
only the sin, but the occasion for it. 

Here is God's noble highway of health, firm to 
the feet, gladsome to the sight. He is leading you 
in it so that you may work his will. But you have 
transformed that highway into a byway of license. 
You abuse your body with too much toil or too 
much play, with sloth or intemperance. Along 
this fair highway of health you are doing, with 
fancied impunity, what you would not dare to do 
if God led you through the valley of pain. And 




26 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

thus you are changing God's leading into your 
temptation. 

God has given you a splendid brain. All the 
paths of intellect he has laid open before you. 
You can follow close upon the steps of the wisest 
men, the greatest philosophers, poets, scientists. 
God has started to lead you along the very road of 
his own mind. But you have seen branch roads to 
this side and to that. One led to selfish power 
among men. One led to wealth, and another to 
human applause, and another to the gratification of 
idle curiosity. And so, as God would lead you 
along the path of holy thoughtfulness up to the 
very home and heart of thought itself, you have 
strayed aside to these follies, and have mocked at 
his leading with your self-made temptation. 

And so, through all the fair aisles of this cathe- 
dral world, their beauty and their power and God's 
dear hand of guidance have not availed to bring 
you to the cathedral's altar, but you have turned to 
the money-changers of the temple, and to the soft 
cushions of the pews. 

And because God would not hold your hand with 
the grasp that would have made a baby of you, you 
have used his respect for your manhood as a license 
to make of yourself a beast. Because he chose not 
to force you to his leading, but wished you to fol- 
low of your own choice, you have chosen only so 




YOUR SPIRIT IN YOUR WORK'. 2J 

much of the highway as brought you to the byway 
of the swamp. 

brother, pray with all your heart : " Lead me 
not into temptation ! Forbid, O God, that I should 
turn thy blessed leading to my own undoing ! 
Amen." 



YOUR SPIRIT IN YOUR WORK. 

i OU are groaning because you accomplish 
so little, forgetting that God's rewards for 
industry come not in proportion to what 
a man does, but in proportion to what 
he honestly tries to do. You are worried because 
your task seems hard, unmindful that the only diffi- 
cult thing in the task is to keep a courageous 
temper. You are in despair over what you call a 
failure, and you do not remember that that dread 
word may be pronounced by God alone, and until 
you have heard it from his lips you have no right 
to take it on your own, or the thought of it into 
your soul. 

It is so easy to do work, and so hard to be a 
worker. A machine, or a machine man, may ac- 
complish things, and is known and valued by the 
amount and accuracy of the product. But a worker 
is often known in spite of the product, or through 
its very meagreness. The essence of work is the 



28 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

spirit of work, and the spirit of work is the spirit 
of the primal Worker; it is joy, and serenity, and 
determination, and patience. Whoso has these is 
a worker, although his hands and his barns remain 
empty ; and whoso lacks these is no worker, although 
his granaries burst with new grain. 

And any one can rejoice in his task. You can ; 
though it is the last task in the world your own 
choice would have selected, you can rejoice in it. 
Indeed, you cannot help rejoicing in it, if you 
rejoice in God ; for, if you have any right to be 
doing it, it is because God chose it for you. That 
is proof that you will find God in it, and whoever 
finds God finds delight. Joy in one's work is one 
of the first and surest tests of a Christian. 

And if you have found God in your work, you 
cannot help being serene in it. " Ah, but," you say, 
" the very joy I feel in it renders me anxious when 
it fails, and worried when it halts." If you are 
worried or anxious, the answer must be, it is be- 
cause you have not found God in your work ; 
for you cannot think that God will fail ; you know 
that God never halts. 

You will be determined in your tasks, when you 
find God in them, as a soldier is zealous under the 
eye of his captain ; and you will be patient in delays 
and foils, as a soldier is patient in camp or on 
retreat, because he trusts his leader. 






SELF AND SERVICE. 29 

Whatever work you cannot do under these con- 
ditions and in this spirit, you undertake at your 
great peril ; yes, though the purpose of the task be 
most noble. Dare not, even in work, to go ahead 
of God. Enter upon no task until he enters it with 
you ; never leave it until he leaves it ; and while you 
are in it, because he is in it, know that doubt is 
doubt of him, and worry is distrust of him, and 
faultfinding with the progress of your honest la- 
bors is treason to him whose co-worker you have 
blessedly become. 



SELF AND SERVICE. 

HEN we would serve Christ, we are con- 
stantly held back by one enemy, — self. 
Christ pleads, " Tell your friends about 
me." Self answers, " My friend will 
think me a prig, or a hypocrite, or a fanatic." Christ 
urges us to give more liberally of the goods he has 
given us. Self craftily reminds us of our pleasures. 
Christ commands, " Testify of me boldly in the 
gatherings of my followers." Self replies, " Nay ; 
for others are more eloquent than I." Self teaches 
the Sunday-school teacher to seek to please his 
scholars rather than his Master. Self drives away 
thoughts of heaven with the flourish of a bank-book. 
Self tires us so with our work that we sleep at our 




30 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

prayers, and smothers three verses of the Bible with 
twelve pages of the newspaper. Self drives away 
the peace of God with worries, and with the world's 
clamor deafens our ears against the still, small 
voice. 

And our very struggles with self seem to tighten 
his hold upon us, while for every deed of self-denial 
we recompense ourselves with deeper wallo wings in 
self-indulgence. 

Is this your experience, as it is mine, my friend ? 
Have you longed for the right hand of God ? 
Longed to grasp his tools, and be fervent in his 
business ? Sunk back, time and again, faint-hearted 
and ashamed, to the padded prison-pen of self ? 
And are you about to give up the struggle alto- 
gether ? 

Then give it up. It is unequal. You never can 
lift yourself. Be lifted. You never can press into 
God's service. Be drafted. You never can conquer 
yourself. Get another self. 

You have heard of the mystery of the Holy Spirit. 
O, solve the mystery. He is your better self, reach- 
ing out eager arms to you. He is your waiting 
power, and peace, and joy. In his hands are your 
tools, your plans, your calendar, your life. He alone 
can ransom you from yourself, take away your ti- 
midity, and give you a holy boldness ; take away 
your self-consciousness and make you forget yourself 




YOUR KING. 31 

in your mission ; take away your base passion for 
money, and ease, and clapping hands, and give you 
a passion for God. 

And he will come for the asking. O, make all 
your soul and life one burning petition ! 

YOUR KING. 

jHRIST seemed, during his earthly minis- 
try, entirely conscious of his supremacy ; 
he knew he was the Lord of heaven and 
earth. How otherwise could he calmly, 
and with results so surprising, call the six from 
their fishing, and Matthew from his money-getting ? 
How otherwise could he be so confident that the 
faithless towns in which his mighty works had 
been done would perish ? How otherwise could 
he promise rest to all that would come to him ? de- 
clare the coming fate of the good and the evil ? set 
himself above the two most sacred objects of Jewish 
reverence, — "greater than the Temple," " Lord of 
the Sabbath " ? How otherwise, to be sure, could 
he assert that all things had been delivered to him 
of the Father, and that he alone revealed the Father 
to men ? 

Well indeed will it be for you if you get into your 
mind something of Christ's clear conviction of his 
character, his purpose, his supremacy ; if you get to 



32 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

know, as Christ knew, that he is Lord of all ; if you 
get a full comprehension, as he had, of his absolute 
right to rule. 

There is far too much parleying with the Master. 
You talk too much of reason. There is one place 
where you cannot afford to debate ; that is at the 
feet of Christ. There is one time when you dare 
not argue ; that is when Christ says, " Do it." His 
is the right to rule. He knows it well. With all 
his humility, love, and sympathy, he knows it now 
as sturdily, as sternly, as aggressively, as he knew it 
in Galilee and Judea. Your only safety, as I pray 
it may be your only wish and joy, is instant and 
complete obedience. 

TO A LONELY WORKER. 

jOU have come to Solitary Road, in De- 
spondency Valley. You and your task 
are alone ; all the more alone because 
of the crowd around you. People tell 
you not to work too hard, but they do not help you 
work. People let you lift their burdens, but have 
no eyes for yours. People claim your interest and 
sympathy, but themselves take no interest in your 
labors, which are your life. You toil and plan and 
toil again, with little heart for it all, because you are 
alone. 




TO A LONELY WORKER. 33 

And so you pity yourself, and I pity you. 

But by what right do you ask companionship in 
work and fellowship in interest ? Who so lonely 
as Christ ? And the disciple is not above his Lord. 
Who so lonely as the world's great workers ? And 
you are a little worker. 

There are tasks where one can work best alone. 
To have a true comrade, you must give as well as 
get. For the time and thought he spends on you, 
you must withdraw from your work time and thought 
to spend on him. Are you willing for that ? Would 
it be best ? 

Be sure that the great Worker will send you a 
co-worker, if it is best for your work, and if you are 
ready for one. Are you ready ? Have you made 
room in your life for other lives, that you expect 
them to make room for you ? Can you subordinate 
yourself and your plans ? Have you learned not to 
be ministered unto, but to minister ? Have you lost 
your life, that you would find it in other lives ? If 
God gave you comradeship, would you not long for 
solitude ? 

Indeed, this very discontent of yours shows how 
far you are from the Friend of friends. To know 
him, is to want no one beyond ; to have him is to 
be unconscious of other wealth or poverty. O, get 
the blessed experience of some of old, and " see no 
man, save Jesus only " ! Do not seek help from 




34 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

him ; seek him. Do not seek friends from him ; 
seek him. Do not seek to get rid of your loneli- 
ness ; seek to get rid of yourself, and to put in its 
place the Spirit, the Comforter. And may he guide 
you into all truth. Amen. 



WHAT KIND OF OBEDIENCE? 

,OU have seen trained lions, how they 
obey, showing all their teeth in rage, 
^MjiJ growling in unsubdued fierceness, and 
whining in angry despair. Is your 
obedience like that ? an obedience of the lash 
and the pistol-shot ? an obedience of the flames of 
hell, the whip of the conscience ? If there were no 
God, if there were no heaven or hell, would there 
be any conscience for you ? Would you bound back 
to the jungle ? 

You have seen how the dog obeys, dumbly and 
unreasoningly, bent through long custom to a cer- 
tain act. A gesture, a word, and he does this or 
that, not knowing why the gesture or what the word, 
or heeding much the act, but intent upon his mas- 
ter's face. Is such a routine fidelity yours ? Do 
you obey God because obedience has become a 
habit, a rut, a course of life into which you have 
stumbled you scarce know how, to which you con- 
fine yourself you scarce know why ? 



WHAT KIND OF OBEDIEXCE? 35 

And then there is the obedience of the soldier, 
who of his own will and reason yields his will and 
sets aside his reason, for higher ends or lower, to 
become -for a season a cog in a great machine, mak- 
ing obedience his first virtue, — obedience instant 
and unthinking as a bar of steel's. Thus has the 
church become your colonel and the Bible your 
general, and thus are you bound by the letter of 
the law, missing its spirit ? 

Among friends, too, there is obedience. Have 
you risen to that with God ? Obedience that has 
eyes and ears, counsel and understanding, that 
links hand with hand, that places back to back, 
that forms partnerships rather than commanderies, 
and societies rather than brigades ? Do you obey 
God with the thoughtful, manly, individual, per- 
suaded obedience of a friend ? 

Highest of all there is the obedience of love, the 
way a son obeys his father or a wife her husband. 
He protects me, cares for me, loves me, and there- 
fore I obey him. He is flesh of my flesh, life of my 
life, and therefore I obey him. Not that I yield 
my will to his, for my will is his. Not that I re- 
spond to his commands, but that he expresses my 
desires. Not that I do my duty, because love knows 
no duty, — all is of delight. You are of the church, 
the bride of Christ. Is your obedience the wife's 
obedience ? 



36 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

Now, to yield any obedience less than the highest 
possible for you is your disgrace, your ruin. The 
dog is an outcast that obeys with snarls like a lion ; 
the soldier is put in prison that obeys like a dog. 
He is no friend whose obedience is only a soldier's ; 
and better a woman unwed, than a wife that is only 
a friend. 

It is easy for the dog to obey like the lion, but let 
him not pride himself on it. It is easy for the sol- 
dier to obey like the dog, or the wife like the friend ; 
but obedience is never easy. Obedience reaches 
to the highest and descends to the lowest ; is of 
everything or of nothing. To stop before the best 
obedience is not to obey at all. 

REJOICING IN FAILURE. 

T is hard indeed to accept failure, tenfold 
harder to rejoice in it. 

And yet, if we have been doing our 
best, the failure of our work is the suc- 
cess of God's work in us. If we have done our full 
duty as prayer discloses it to us, then failure was 
part of our duty. God sometimes sets tasks in 
order that they may not be done, for the lessons of 
failure are far more precious than the teachings 
of success, and far more difficult to learn. 
What are those lessons ? 




REJOICING IN FAILURE. $7 

Humility, that opens our eyes to our own abso- 
lute nothingness, and to the glorious truth that God 
is all in all. 

Kinship with eternity, whose long riches we 
should forget, if everything came at our desire in 
this present time. 

Patience. The willingness to wait that is divine, 
because no one in all the universe waits so long or 
so patiently as the Creator of the universe. 

Determination. The steel must go even to the 
fire, before it is tempered to pass through iron. 

Love for the work itself, apart from the results of 
the work ; since the task, — that God has given to 
us, but the results are not within our control. 

Trust. God is love, and his will is all for our 
joy. God is power, and his will accomplishes itself. 
There is no failure, however our dull eyes may see, 
if we are God's. 

Now these are the lessons of failure; and having 
learned them, we shall rejoice in failure. 

But we have not learned them if we simply 
endure failure, shrinking from it and wishing it 
otherwise ; if we doubt God's kindness in it, and 
pity ourselves, or accept the pity of others. When- 
ever we have done our best — nay, have humbly 
permitted God to do his best in us — the only right 
feeling toward failure is that of joy. 

Praise the Lord that he is breaking down your 




3 8 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

pride ! Praise the Lord that he trusts you in the 
dark ! Praise the Lord that he has made you a 
partner in his long plans, that can pierce through 
failure on failure, and reach their goal at last ! 
Praise God for the immortality of endeavor ! 

O our Master, we trust in thee. Fulfil thy 
desire in us. Amen. 



GETTING POWER IN PRAYER. 

>OWER in prayer is more than the ability 
to get through prayer the thing that you 
wish. It is the ability to rejoice in God 
when you do not get it. 
The prayer that is powerful moves not God alone ; 
it moves ourselves. Its power is shown sometimes 
in the number of needs it grasps and lays before the 
throne ; more often in bearing but a single burden 
and leaving it there ; more often still in bringing to 
God no burden at all, but in running to him with 
our joy, that he may share it. 

If you have power in prayer, you are not lonely, 
for the universe has become one omnipresent friend 
and lover. You are not weak, for you have gained 
the key to the storehouse of omnipotence. You are 
not sad, for God has taught your eyes to see the 
world's joy even as he sees it. Things of time 
have become dignified with the glory of the endless 



GETTING POWER IN PRAYER. 39 

years, you walk the earth as a prince of the king- 
dom, fear is no more for you, nor envy, nor tears, if 
you have power in prayer. 

You cannot get this power by praying every day, 
or thrice a day, though that will help you get it. 
Rather, when you have got it, you will pray thrice a 
day, and far oftener. You cannot get it by deeds of 
love and obedience. Rather, when you have got it, 
your life will be filled with such deeds. You cannot 
get it through the pathway of duty, though it will 
beautify that pathway after it is gained. 

If you want power in prayer, you must stop think- 
ing of the rewards of prayer. You must be entirely 
willing that there should be no reward, beyond the 
prayer. Indeed, you must take no thought of the 
prayer at all, but only of God. When we talk to 
our dear ones on the earth, we do not remember 
that we are talking ; we are heedless of our words ; 
we are almost careless about the theme of our 
converse ; we are seeking them. 

Thus address yourself to Christ, not because 
prayer is your duty, but because Christ is Christ. 
Not because prayer means gifts, strength, peace, 
joy, but because Christ is Christ. Learn to love 
him, rather than anything that proceeds from him. 
Seek not to receive from him, but to be with 
him. See no man, no thing, save Jesus only 
That is to pray. 



40 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

When you forget that there is power in prayer, 
then you get power in prayer ; when you are heed- 
less of everything else that is in it, heedless also of 
yourself that is praying, your whole spirit bent solely 
upon the dear Object of its love and adoration, then 
you get power in prayer. 

O blessed Master, for what thou art, we worship 
thee ; because we love thee, we pray to thee. And 
when our love falls short, come to meet it, we be- 
seech thee, with thine outstretched arms. Amen. 



BE AMBITIOUS. 

?0 man that ever lived on this earth was 
more rightfully and regally ambitious 
than Jesus Christ. Refusing from the 
hand of Satan the kingdoms of this 
world and the glory thereof, he claimed them in his 
own right, and up to the final day of judgment. 

In proportion as we are at one with Christ, we 
are at one with his ambition. 

An unambitious man or woman cannot make a 
very strong Christian. As to possessions, we should 
learn that all things are ours, and be satisfied with 
nothing less. As to power, all power is given to 
our Elder Brother, and we can do all things through 
him that strengtheneth us. As to attainment, he 




BE AMBITIOUS. 4 1 

has commanded, " Be ye perfect"; and all his com- 
mandments are enablements. 

Christian humility shows itself in acknowledging 
the Source of these marvellous endowments of 
ours; it does not consist in dispensing with them. 
Acquiescence in weakness, complacency toward 
sloth, willingness to be inefficient, — this is far 
enough from Christian humility. Christ said that 
of himself he could do nothing, yet he spoke with 
such authority that even the winds and the seas 
obeyed him. He washed the disciples' feet, but he 
yielded not a jot to Herod or Pontius Pilate. The 
most humble child of God dare not stop short of 
Christ's ambition. 

And the trouble with all ambitious men is that 
they are not ambitious enough. They seek money, 
but not the riches that cannot perish. They seek 
fame, but not the eternal applause of the uncounted 
myriads of heaven. They seek beautiful homes, 
but not the supernal delights of the many mansions. 
They seek ease and luxury, but not the peace that 
the world cannot give or take away. 

Now ambition is like a leap over a chasm. Our 
direction may be all right, but it is fatal not to go 
far enough. To halt with these earthly ambitions 
means death as surely as to go on to their spiritual 
analogies means everlasting life. Nor is there any 
compromise between the height and the depth. 




42 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

In the fear of that awful depth, in the hope of 
that noble height, — nay, because it is the will 
of the Lord whom we love, — let us press forward 
to the mark of our high calling in him. Amen. 



THE FORWARD LOOK. 

; HRIST always looked ahead. From the 
first, when he preached a coming king- 
dom of heaven, he was a seer of the 
future. His beatitudes declared good 
men blessed because of joys to come, "for great is 
their reward in heaven." His model prayer opens 
with longing for the coming of the kingdom. That 
kingdom we are to seek first, sure that everything 
else we need will be added unto us. The wine of 
this kingdom needs new wine-skins ; away with 
cracked and dried-up forms ! Twelve apostles of 
the kingdom are anointed, and sent forth to pro- 
claim, " It is at hand." The harvest is soon to 
come ; so soon that the tares may grow on with the 
wheat. But in the end of the world, ah, then the fire ! 
Christ was not of A. D. 30 ; no more should you, 
Christ's follower, be of A. D. 1898. Christ's foun- 
dations have stood because they were pushed up- 
ward and not sunk downward. He refused at any 
point to anchor himself to the world he had made. 
While helping it most, he was most divorced from 



HOW SIMPLE IS LIFE! 43 

it. While looking with most loving, practical sym- 
pathy upon the sore bodies and sorer hearts of 
mortal men, there shone clearest in his eyes the 
far-away look, the look John followed when he saw 
that there is to be no more pain. 

For though a kingdom on the earth, it is to be a 
new earth and a new heaven, and we are to bring it 
in by living for it, and not for the old earth where 
the Klondikes are, and the stock exchanges, and 
the latest fashions from Paris. If you wish to see 
plainly in the present, look beyond the present. If 
you wish to win the world, win the next world. 
If you wish to help men here, help them toward 
the hereafter. In shooting, men do not look at 
the musket, but at the mark ; in living, the wise 
man will look less at the earth than at heaven. 



HOW SIMPLE IS LIFE! 

! OUR brow is furrowed and your mouth is 
set. Your brain is awhirl with a multi- 
tude of tasks ; tasks that clash against 
one another ; tasks for which there is no 
time ; tasks for which scant appreciation waits you 
when with torn heart and sinking spirits they are 
at last accomplished. It seems a hard world, an 
unjust world, a world of weariness and confusion 
and despair. 




44 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

Now I will utter a hard saying, but a true one : 
no man has a right to live aught but an easy life. 

Ah, brother of the furrowed brow, you are trying 
to do many things, and you should do only one 
thing. You are trying to please many masters, and 
you should try to please only one master. You are 
baffled by many failures, but success has never 
been beyond an arm's reach. It is because you 
have preferred the countless pursuits of the world 
to the single pursuit of God ; the many minds of 
men to the one mind of the Master ; the tinsel 
rewards of earth to the lasting glories of heaven, 
— it is for this reason that life seems hard to you. 

Every frown on a man's forehead, every furrow 
traced by fretfulness and worry, is a legible line 
condemning his Christianity. Christ has but one 
will for you at any time, and not ten thousand wills. 
You can, therefore, have but one task at any time. 
If you do that will as best you read it, there is no 
failure for you in earth or heaven. The complexity 
of life is born of its selfishness. If your eye is 
single, your life will be simple and easy. 

Be determined, then, that you will not be dis- 
tracted. Count peace a duty, until you can know it 
as a blessed privilege. As you deem it wrong not 
to come up to God's design for you, so deem it 
wrong to overstep it. And when your life begins 
to grow intricate and confused, quickly drop all its 




THE GREAT SURRENDER. 45 

lines into your Father's hands, saying to him : 
" Father, this is your life, and not mine. Show me 
how thou wouldst have me live it for thee." 



THE GREAT SURRENDER. 

&&*£* HAT is it to make the great surrender ? 
It is to yield yourself completely to the 
eternal life. We are to exist forever. 
Give yourself up to that thought. Do 
nothing, say nothing, think nothing, that will not 
contribute toward your eternal happiness. Use 
the things that perish, only so far as they minister 
to the things that endure. Not merely accept the 
lot God metes out to you, but rejoice in it, and 
take no step and entertain no wish that would 
change it in the least. That is to make the great 
surrender. 

It is a surrender to God, who alone is eternal 
life, and obeying whom alone we have it. It is a 
surrender to Christ, who alone discloses and inter- 
prets that eternal life to us. It is a surrender to 
peace, for in the eternal life, and there only, is time 
for all accomplishments, healing for all wounds, 
compensation for all lacks, and satisfying for all 
desires. It is a surrender to power, because no 
one can move this world whose feet rest upon it, 
but a foothold upon eternal realities gives all 



46 LITTLE SERMONS FOR ONE. 

needed leverage for courageous speech and strong 
action. 

If you are wishing for an easier life, you have 
not made the great surrender. If you covet a 
larger salary, wider opportunities, and greater repu- 
tation, you have not made this surrender. You 
may well be dissatisfied with yourself ; but if you 
are in any way dissatisfied with God, you have not 
made the great surrender. 

If you have given up some things and hope God 
will not ask you to give up other things, you have 
not yielded yourself utterly to him. If you do the 
good deeds that come easy to you, and keep your- 
self away from chances to do good deeds that are 
difficult or unpleasant, you are not God's entirely. 
No ; if you have thrust from you ten thousand sins, 
yet hold on to the very least of all, you belong to 
that sin and to the master of it, and not to God. 

For our Master requires us to be perfect, perfect 
at least in our desires, that he may be enabled to 
perfect us in our lives. With the passing away of 
the last lingering fondness for the last sin, we attain 
to the great surrender; with the hearty choice of 
the last difficult task which our conscience has been 
pressing upon us, but from which we have been 
shrinking ; Avith the abandonment of the last, the 
dearest, possession, yea, though it be some life that 
is dearer far than our own. 






THE GREAT SURRENDER. 47 

Dare we not do it ? Dare we not trust our 
Creator ? Dare we not give up all things to gain 
him, and in him and together with him to find all 
things ? 

Ah, dare we do otherwise ? 






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